People’s Choice Award for Placer County Exhibit

Visitors at the 2013 California State Fair selected Placer County’s exhibit to receive a coveted People’s Choice Award.

People’s Choice Awards are presented to the best overall, most fun and most educational exhibits. The awards are particularly prestigious because the winners are the exhibits that receive the most votes from fairgoers.

⤥ Summer Fun Starts Here ⤦

⤥ Summer Fun Starts Here ⤦

⤥ Summer Fun Starts Here ⤦

⤥ Summer Fun Starts Here ⤦

Placer County received the People’s Choice Award for the best overall exhibit. 

“Our exhibit was bound to be a crowd favorite, because it had several inviting displays that caught the public’s attention, and entertained everyone by shooting live digital footage of their movements and displaying it on small screens at the front of the displays,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Jim Holmes. “The exhibit also served a very important purpose: promoting Placer County and its many attractions to the hundreds of thousands of people who attended this year’s State Fair.”

Each year, many of California’s counties create exhibits for display in the State Fair’s California Building. Placer County sponsors an exhibit annually to promote its many recreational, historical and other attractions.

This year, a panel of judges recognized Placer County’s exhibit with a Gold Award and two major technical awards: one for the best use of special effects and animation and the second for having the best professionally built exhibit. Placer County received those awards during an opening-day ceremony July 12 announcing the winners of the 2013 County Exhibits Competition. During this year’s competition, each participating county received a Gold Award or Silver Award for its exhibit.

The theme of Placer County’s exhibit this year was “Fun, Family, Food and Film.” The exhibit featured several vignettes that use animated characters, special effects and colorful detail to give fairgoers an idea of Placer County’s scenic beauty and the many historical, recreational, arts and agricultural attractions it offers both tourists and filmmakers looking for out-of-the-ordinary backdrops for movies, television shows and commercials.  

The vignettes featured small movie cameras and animated cinematographers who shot live digital footage of fairgoers and projected it on small screens framed by movie slates and clapboards.

The exhibit highlighted some of the movies that have been filmed in Placer County since it began to attract the attention of Hollywood in the 1920s.  

This year’ exhibit was a joint project by the Placer County Office of Economic Development, Placer County Visitors Bureau and Richard Bay, a professional exhibit builder.